Page 17

By Jack Joseph Smith

I try like a child, I flutter my wings as fast as a sparrow, I lose myself in blue gils And watch the sunset The same place it rises We have doors for children swift as our silence is Theaves look and wonder at their deeds Sure as Shakespeare, enjoyableable people try there hand at laughter We are not strange with a gutar and forty four You imagine we don't know the differance between mice and men when we want to blow stuff up This blind joy lets us not get caught Maybe migic never runs out, and each may bless ano'hers tears

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page imagines the speaker as a child or sparrow, fluttering toward sunset in a lyric of vulnerability and ascent.

The bird imagery softens the collection's harsher edges without removing them. The poem's beauty comes from the feeling of trying to rise while already aware of loss and self-erasure.

Claude

A lighter, ascending lyric where the speaker tries 'like a child,' flutters 'as fast as a sparrow,' and loses himself 'in blue gils' while watching the sunset rise where it sets. Outlaw and art mix easily - 'Theaves look and wonder at their deeds, / Sure as Shakespeare' - and the gun stays close: 'We are not strange with a gutar and forty four,' the menace of wanting 'to blow stuff up' tucked inside 'This blind joy lets us not get caught.' It ends on grace - 'Maybe migic never runs out, / and each may bless ano'hers tears' - with 'gils,' 'gutar,' 'differance,' and 'migic' kept verbatim. This reading stays provisional: the band is 'mixed,' handwriting is uncertain, and a large lower-right marginal note that may begin 'Don't throw it' was left out as unstable.